


Diamond

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Drama, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A time when it wasn't good to be Roy; and a time when it is.</p>
<p>[Very vague spoilers for Brotherhood 'verse.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamond

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is a sequel to [Collaboration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/380170), but it can also entertain itself on its own.

The world is burning, and smoke rises in lazy coils towards the sky. The smoke is in his clothes, and the soot is on his face—cinders of the dead. He is cremating this civilization, one day, one sector, one street at a time. That almost makes it easier. He is carrying out a ritual execution. He is delivering a fate that was decided by someone else, a long time ago. He’s not a god; just a messenger. One mustn’t shoot the messenger. He didn’t ask for this. It’s not his fault he reduces the city to roasted flesh and blackened stone. It’s his duty. It’s his obligation. This will make everything better, somehow. They’ve told him. He trusts.

Every now and again, the heat hits the sand just right, and it crystallizes into chunks of glass. They look like diamonds. It’s funny, seeing that kind of false finery buried in the dust and the ash; something jumps in his chest that’s probably a laugh. His throat’s too dry to release it, though. He’ll keep it for another time.

He crouches down over a tiny pit of fake-diamonds and sifts them through his hands. Some of them cut into his skin, and some of them turn pink like that _thing_ that clicks against Kimblee’s teeth and bounces on his tongue, and some of them melt and redden.

The people come. He thought they might. He doesn’t have his gloves, which is stupid; it’s a dull, great but distant surprise that the brass let him leave camp without him sweating into the trump card that’s made him a victor at a game he didn’t mean to play. But you can’t quit. Those are the rules. And he signed up fair and square.

The people crawl across the sand towards him, mouths open soundlessly. The sand scrapes against those brightly-colored scarves, with the stripes. He wanted to ask about those. They must have some sort of cultural significance. The coldness in him that raises walls to protect whatever else is left remarks that a culture on its deathbed won’t need symbols for long.

The people’s dark skin is burnt black almost everywhere, or burnt red, or blistering white and seething. Some of them are still bubbling, but they don’t scream. They stare at him with wide red eyes that liquefy and bleed, and the blood runs in tear trails, in little rivers that pool on the parched sand and then soak and taint and are gone. The sand swallows everything, given time.

They crawl to him from all sides; he’s fixed in place by the diamond gloves hardening around his hands.

_It’s just a game,_ he tells them; _it’s just a game I have to play to keep going._

They reach him. Too hot in this miserable place. Too much smoke; too much sand; too many seared bodies with their numb limbs pressing in, and he thrills with panic and opens his eyes.

Dark.

He’s breathing fast and lightly, shallowly, and he can’t get enough oxygen to his brain; should use the array, ha; he hasn’t done the pure-oxygen-high trick in a while, and that’s _good_ —

There’s an arm on his chest.

_There’s an arm—_

He twists, but there’s another weight on the opposite hip, and the fingers belonging to the arm clench against his bare skin.

“Quit squirming,” Edward Elric mutters into his ear. “Jeez. I thought you, of all people, would have bed-sharing courtesy down to a science.”

Roy rummages in his chest for a shaky laugh, trots it out, and uses the hand that’s not all pins and needles under Edward’s head to swipe the thin layer of sweat off of his forehead. “Do forgive my egregious breach of conduct.”

Edward is quiet for a moment, his hand flattened over Roy’s heart. “You want a glass of water or something?”

“I’m all right,” Roy says, which is not entirely true. “It’ll pass,” he says, which is.

“Keep your voice down,” Edward says, despite the fact that he’s been speaking to the tune of several more decibels since the infelicitous conversation began.

“It’s all right, Brother,” the weight on Roy’s hip mumbles. “I’m already awake.”

“You okay?” Edward asks, hand skipping down Roy’s chest to tousle the hair that has lately been stroking at his side.

Alphonse stifles a yawn and leans into the touch. “Sore,” he says. Roy’s stomach flips interestingly. “One or both of you should carry me tomorrow. I can’t be expected to walk.”

Edward’s grin rings loud and clear even in the darkness. “I’m sure the Colonel would be honored.”

“The General,” Roy says. “Is he too big for you to lift, Edward?”

Holy _hell_ , the automail leg is cold when he ambushes you with it. Roy will have to remember that tactic.

“Who,” Edward hisses into his ear, “are you calling so small you don’t think he could tackle you off the bed and snap your spine, old man?”

“I’m not old,” Roy says.

“Yeah, and birds don’t sing, and trees don’t grow, and water isn’t wet, and Al hates kittens—”

Alphonse clears his throat loudly and then rustles his way up the bed to settle against Roy’s other side. “Is there anything we can do to help you get back to sleep, General? Our mother would always bring me a glass of warm milk.”

“I’m not kissing anybody with milk-breath,” Edward says. “ _Ever_.”

“She would bring Brother a glass of warm karma.”

“Cheap shot.” Edward’s hand shoots across with deadly accuracy, and his fingertips brush the tiny ticklish spot under Alphonse’s earlobe that Edward first betrayed several hours ago. “Equivalent exchange, Al!”

Alphonse is too busy squealing and wriggling to retaliate, and Roy takes a moment to wonder what his neighbors will think—provided, that is, that all of his neighbors did not move to Creta the moment they heard the moaning start.

If they didn’t, it probably serves them right.

Sleep, Roy decides as he maneuvers to tickle both Elrics at once, is somewhat overrated. And can be obtained in one of the records rooms tomorrow as required.

Sometimes, it’s very, very good to be General Mustang. Now is one of those times.


End file.
